After the Bernina Express, Tirano to Florence that night!

The last train that makes the connection without an all-night journey departs Tirano at 17:08 and arrives at Firenze 5 hours later. If you arrive at Tirano after that train departs, your best option is to overnight there or in Varenna, then continue the journey the next day.

But if you must be in Florence that same day, why can’t you take an earlier train on the Bernina route? I see the earlier run of the actual Bernina Express (arriving at Tirano at 15:31) does not start service until May, but you could take a regional train instead—-they run hourly and use the same tracks with the same views.

Looking at your prior posting history... Are you trying to travel from Zermatt to Florence via the Glacier and Bernina Express in a day? I hope not, you will hate trains for the rest of your lives if you attempt this ;)
Otherwise, you should be able to take earlier trains as suggested by Lola.

Thank you all for your suggestions. No, we are not doing both trains in the same day. We'll be on the Glacier Express, night in St. Moritz, then the Bernina Express the next day. Yes, we may need to take an earlier, non-tourist train. I think our choices are pretty limited.. wondering if anyone has suggestions for a hired car.
Many thanks
Cat

Oh if you are staying in St Moritz then there is no issue at all! Just take one of the hourly trains to Tirano; the views are the same as on the named Bernina Express.
For example, the 8.48 AM departure from St Moritz would get you to Florence at 4.04 PM.

By the way, I would not recommend staying in St Moritz itself (unless you can afford the best hotels there - and even then, waste of money for just an overnight IMO); Pontresina or Samedan are more charming overall.

I join Balso in recommending Samedan or Pontresina over St. Moritz.

I suggest you just take an earlier regional train so you can complete the journey to Florence by train. But I did a quick search for private drivers for 6 passengers from Tirano to Florence and came up with 784 euro for a passenger van on mydaytrip.com for a random date in April.

https://mydaytrip.com/configurator?adults=6&children=0&currency=0&departureAt=1649869200000&isOtherDirection=false&luggage=6&passengers=6&routeId=5f7005c4-7f36-4468-b503-4526bbc90d75&vehicles=2

Of course I have no idea how reliable they are, and what extra charges there might be. Personally, I would be far more comfortable with the train. We took the regional train from Pontresina to Tirano a few years back and were very happy with the experience—-the car was so uncrowded (only one other couple there) that we could freely move back and forth to see the views on both sides of the train. WE could not have done that in the Bernina Express reserved seats.

We used MyDayTrip (different country) and the experience couldn't have been better.

The earliest train from Tirano to Firenze is at 6:12, so you’d get in around 11:00 and at least have the afternoon to work with.

Thanks, Janet. that is good to know and helpful for the OP. For 6 people with their travel plans, that might indeed be a viable option.

Thank you, all! We will probably take the regular train to Tirano instead, though we are looking into a van for us all. Thanks for all the suggestions.

The train will have much better glimpses of the lake - Lake Como - between Tirano and Milan. The train between Milan and Florence will go at 300 kilometres per hour for much of the journey. That's 186 mph. No van can go anywhere near that speed!